Turtle2: Always pick your tinder from standing trees: NEVER use materials found on the ground. Every night, the temperature drops, and the air can't hold the same amount of water it did when it was warmer. Even in the desert, that moisture- however small- drops to the ground. In deserts, the sand will form a " crust " from the moisture that " glues " the granules together. In wooded areas and in grasslands, that moisture will be soaked into anything on the ground. The moisture in the ground will also be soaked UP into the debris on the surface, just like a paper towel soaks up water off the floor.
Use the " snap " test to pick your tinder. All evergreens, both trees and bushes, have dead branches and twigs inside the green outer growth. If the twig or branch "SNAPS" easily in your finger, its not only dead, but DRY enough to be used to start a fire.
Find dead leaves and grass that can be tinder by looking in shaded places out of the wind and rains. Under a rock overhang, or under an old tree that has blown down, or is tilted against another tree. Look for birds nests. By this time of year, most of last year's nests have been torn apart and the materials used to make new nests. Since the young birds are not quite all out of the nest yet, you may have to wait to harvest this year's nest, but by late summer, those nests will be abandoned, too. Look for Hornet's nests. You will have to knock them down into a bucket of water to drown the hornets, but when you dry the material out, it makes very good tinder.
The inner bark of many trees can be dried in the sun on rocks, or stumps, or trunks of trees, and when it crumbles in your hand when you rub it between your two hands, it is usually dry enough to serve as tinder. Test dead leaves you find in shaded areas the same way you test other materials. It should crumble in your hands when rubbed together if its dry enough to be tinder. If it does not crumble, pass on it, and find something dryer.
If you do use flint and steel and charred clothe to make fire, you can used the charred cloth as a bast to help heat and dry out your other materials, on a cloudy day. It will take lots of blowing to keep the heat high enough to burn the damp materials, but with continued supplies of forced air, the temperature can be raised enough to create flame and burn on its own. The secret is to keep the area that you want to burn small, and tightly compacted so that any heat generated by your blowing on the charred cloth will immediately dryout the other materials. Have a stack of pine or spruce needles to add to the flames or embers as you continue to blow. The resin will help the needles burn, and the oils will produce a hotter flame and ember than simple sticks.
I had some hemp rope, that absorbed moisture from the ground and from our hands on a very HOT July morning, with high humidity. We made the mistake of holding it in our hands while we prepared the rest of the material for display to our students. When it would not fire, we put it aside, on an exposed rock, to dry in the sun,while we used another piece of hemp to make a nest. ABout 10 minutes later, the damp hemp was dry enough that we got a fire going using it.
Its imperative that you keep your tinder dry by not only protecting it from the air, but also from your own body. Provided, that in the winter, when the relative humidity is bone dry, and even your sweat dissipates in seconds, keeping tinder under your outer jacket and over your cloths, no matter how much you have perspired, usually will not make the tinder worthless for making a fire. If anything, when you remove tinder from your inner pockets, whatever humidity will be drawn off as the temperature of the tinder is lowered quickly to the temperature of the air around it. Sub freezing temperatures actually make fire starting a little bit easier.
